(now 1st battalion king's royal rifles) was present in the Corunna campaign. On 9 July 1809 he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the 39th foot. With the 1st battalion 39th he served in Sicily during Murat's threatened invasion from the opposite coast, joined Wellington's army in the Peninsula in 1812, and was present at the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the investment of Bayonne, and the battles at Nivelle, the Nive, Orthez, and Toulouse. During the latter part of the time he was on the personal staff of his old colonel, Sir Robert William O'Callaghan. He accompanied his regiment from Bordeaux to Canada in 1814, and was with it at the Pittsburg fiasco, and afterwards with the army of occupation in France. He became captain 8 Feb. 1821, and on 10 June 1826 was promoted to a majority on half-pay unattached. For some years he was secretary in the lord chamberlain's office at the House of Lords. In 1837 he was appointed an assistant adjutant-general in Ireland, and on 23 Nov. 1841 became a brevet lieutenant-colonel unattached, and was appointed deputy adjutant-general in the Australian colonies, a post he held until 1855. He became a brevet-colonel in 1854, and in 1855 succeeded Sir Robert Nickle in the command of the troops, with the rank of major-general, in Australia. On the death of Sir Charles Hotham [see Hotham, Sir Charles], Macarthur, as senior military officer, became acting-governor of Victoria, and administered the government of that colony from 1 Jan. to 31 Dec. 1856. He became a major-general 26 Oct. 1858. He held the military command in Australia until 1860, when he returned home and was made a C.B., and in 1862 K.C.B. and colonel of the 100th regiment or royal Canadians. He became a lieutenant-general 14 June 1866. He had the Peninsular medal and seven clasps. Macarthur died in London 4 June 1872, aged 82. He left property in England and Australia (for will see Times, 20 July 1872).
Macarthur married Sarah, third daughter of Lieutenant-colonel William Smith Neill, and sister of Brigadier James George Smith Neill [q. v.], who fell at Lucknow.
[Hart's Army List; Cannon's Hist. Rec. 39th Dorsetshire Regiment; Heaton's Australian Dictionary of Dates, p. 122.]
MACARTHUR, JOHN (1767–1834), ‘the father’ of New South Wales, born at Plymouth, Devonshire, in 1767, was second son of Alexander Macarthur, who, after fighting at Culloden, fled to the West Indies, and returned to England. John was educated at a local school, and on 30 April 1788 became ensign in the 68th or Durham regiment of foot. On 5 June 1789 he became lieutenant in the 102nd foot, or New South Wales corps, which had been raised for service in the colony. He arrived at Sydney in June 1790, had a grant of land near Parramatta, and, like other members of the corps, engaged in various commercial pursuits. He was made commandant at Parramatta in January 1793, was promoted captain 5 June 1795, and seems to have retired in 1804. At Elizabeth Farm, as he called his settlement, he paid great attention to agriculture, and is said to have been the first to use an English plough. He also devoted himself to improving the breed of sheep in the colony. In 1796 Captains Waterhouse and Kent made a voyage to the Cape for supplies, and Macarthur commissioned them to procure sheep of the best kind. There happened to be for sale at the Cape certain merino sheep, the gift of the king of Spain to the Dutch government, and a few were purchased and brought to New South Wales in 1797. Those which Macarthur obtained he tended with the greatest care. In 1801 he fought a duel with Lieutenant-colonel Paterson of the New South Wales corps, and considering himself badly used in the proceedings which followed, he demanded a court-martial, and after some delay was sent to England, where he resigned his commission. Taking with him specimens of his wool, he interested the manufacturers, and had frequent conferences with Lord Camden, then secretary of state for the colonies, who perceived the importance of obtaining the finest wool from English colonies rather than from foreign countries. In 1805 Macarthur returned to New South Wales in the Argo, which he had purchased, with a grant of five thousand, afterwards increased to ten thousand, acres in the cow pastures. This station he named Camden, and there, encouraged by Philip Gidley King [q. v.], the governor, he continued to make improvements in colonial agriculture, planting the olive and other trees, then new to the colony, which he had brought out from England. In August 1806 William Bligh [q. v.] succeeded King in the governorship and at once commenced a crusade against the liquor traffic, in which Macarthur, like other members of the New South Wales corps, was largely interested. In February 1807 an order was issued forbidding distillation in the colony, and the Dart arriving in March with two stills, one of which was consigned to Macarthur, the governor ordered reshipment. Many sympathised with Macarthur; a political crisis followed, and a warrant was made out for Macarthur's
